{"id":17414,"date":"2018-10-29T09:32:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T13:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17414"},"modified":"2018-10-29T10:01:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T14:01:29","slug":"the-most-essential-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17414","title":{"rendered":"<strong>The Most Essential Thing<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UmLXQ3NT7T4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Most Essential Thing<\/strong><br \/>\nSunday, October 28, 2018<\/p>\n<p>The most powerful, most needed, and most essential teaching is always Love. Love is our foundation and our destiny. It is where we come from and where we\u2019re headed. As St. Paul famously says, \u201cSo faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of these is love\u201d (1 Corinthians 13:13).<\/p>\n<p>My hope, whenever I speak or write, is to help clear away the impediments to receiving, allowing, trusting, and participating in a foundational Love. God\u2019s love is planted inside each of us as the Holy Spirit who, according to Jesus, \u201cwill teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you\u201d (John 14:26).<\/p>\n<p>Love is who you are. When you don\u2019t live according to love, you are outside of being. You\u2019re basically not real or true to yourself. When you love, you are acting according to your deepest being, your deepest truth. You are operating according to your dignity. For a simple description of the kind of love I am talking about, let\u2019s just use the word outflowing. This will become clearer as we proceed.<\/p>\n<p>All I can do is remind you of what you already know deep within your True Self and invite you to live connected to this Source. John the Evangelist writes, \u201cGod is love, and whoever remains in love, remains in God and God in them\u201d (1 John 4:16). The Judeo-Christian creation story says that we were created in the very \u201cimage and likeness\u201d of God\u2014who sets the highest bar for this kind of outflowing love (Genesis 1:26-27). Out of the Trinity\u2019s generative and infinitely flowing relationship, all of creation takes form, mirroring its Creator in its deepest identity.<\/p>\n<p>We have heard this phrase so often that we don\u2019t get the existential shock of what \u201ccreated in the image and likeness of God\u201d is saying about us. If this is true, then our family of origin is divine. It is saying that we were created by a loving God to also be love in the world. Our core is original blessing, not original sin. Our starting point is \u201cvery good\u201d (Genesis 1:31). If the beginning is right, the rest is made considerably easier, because we know and can trust the clear direction of our life\u2019s tangent.<\/p>\n<p>We must all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity \u201chidden with Christ in God\u201d (Colossians 3:3). The Bible calls the state of separateness \u201csin.\u201d God\u2019s job description is to draw us back into primal and intimate relationship. \u201cMy dear people, we are already children of God; what we will be in the future has not yet been fully revealed, and all I do know is that we shall be like God\u201d (1 John 3:2).<\/p>\n<p>Henceforth, all our moral behavior is simply \u201cthe imitation of God.\u201d First observe what God is doing all the time and everywhere, and then do the same thing (Ephesians 5:1). And what does God do? God does what God is: Love. God does not love you if and when you change. God loves you so that you can change!<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>Loving the Presence in the Present<br \/>\nMonday, October 29, 2018<\/p>\n<p>A human being is a part of the whole, called by us \u201cUniverse,\u201d a part limited in time and space. [One] experiences [oneself] . . . as something separated from the rest\u2014a kind of optical delusion of [one\u2019s] consciousness. . . . Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. \u2014Albert Einstein [1]<\/p>\n<p>We cannot attain the presence of God because we\u2019re already in the presence of God. What\u2019s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God\u2019s love is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As we take another, it means that God is choosing us now and now and now and now. We have nothing to attain or even learn. We do, however, need to unlearn some things.<\/p>\n<p>To become aware of God\u2019s loving presence in our lives, we must accept that human culture is in a mass hypnotic trance. We\u2019re sleepwalkers. All great religious teachers have recognized that we human beings do not naturally see; we have to be taught how to see. Jesus says further, \u201cIf your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light\u201d (Luke 11:34). Religion is meant to teach us how to see and be present to reality. That\u2019s why the Buddha and Jesus say with one voice, \u201cBe awake.\u201d Jesus talks about \u201cstaying watchful\u201d (Matthew 25:13; Luke 12:37; Mark 13: 33-37), and \u201cBuddha\u201d means \u201cI am awake\u201d in Sanskrit.<\/p>\n<p>Prayer is not primarily saying words or thinking thoughts. It is, rather, a stance. It\u2019s a way of living in the Presence, living in awareness of the Presence, and even enjoying the Presence. The contemplative is not just aware of God\u2019s Loving Presence, but trusts, allows, and delights in it.<\/p>\n<p>Faith in God is not just faith to believe in spiritual ideas. It\u2019s to have confidence in Love itself. It\u2019s to have confidence in reality itself. At its core, reality is okay. God is in it. God is revealed in all things, even through the tragic and sad, as the revolutionary doctrine of the cross reveals!<\/p>\n<p>All spiritual disciplines have one purpose: to get rid of illusions so we can be more fully present to what is. These disciplines exist so that we can see what is, see who we are, and see what is happening. What is is love, so much so that even the tragic will be used for purposes of transformation into love. It is God, who is love, giving away God every moment as the reality of our life. Who we are is love, because we are created in God\u2019s image. What is happening is God living in us, with us, and through us as our unique manifestation of love. And each one of us is a bit different because the forms of love are infinite.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>LINGER IN MY PRESENCE A WHILE. Rein in your impulses to plunge into the day\u2019s activities. Beginning your day alone with Me is essential preparation for success. A great athlete takes time to prepare himself mentally for the feat ahead of him before he moves a muscle. Similarly, your time of being still in My Presence equips you for the day ahead of you. Only I know what will happen to you this day. I have arranged the events you will encounter as you go along your way. If you are not adequately equipped for the journey, you will grow weary and lose heart. Relax with Me while I ready you for action. <\/p>\n<p>ZECHARIAH 2: 13; 13   Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>EPHESIANS 2: 10; For we are God\u2019s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to <\/p>\n<p>HEBREWS 12: 3  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Most Essential Thing Sunday, October 28, 2018 The most powerful, most needed, and most essential teaching is always Love. Love is our foundation and our destiny. It is where we come from and where we\u2019re headed. As St. Paul famously says, \u201cSo faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of these is love\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17414"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17418,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17414\/revisions\/17418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}